Revisiting the Mojave Northern Railroad, and Building Layout Sections 8 and 7

Last time we revisited Victorville's cement plant, and this time we'll revisit its private railroad, the Mojave Northern.   Then we'll look at some benchwork progress on building Sections 8 and 7.

The purpose of the Mojave Northern was to carry limestone rocks from distant quarries to the Southwestern Portland Cement plant for processing.  At the cement plant, side-dump rock cars were pushed up a trestle, and the rock cars were unloaded there.  Here's an aerial view of that part of the cement plant:

At the bottom of this photo is the three-stall engine house, and along the left edge you can see the trestle where the rock cars were pushed for unloading.  A string of rock cars is waiting at the far end of the trestle to be unloaded.

Here we see a pair of Mojave Northern 0-6-0T saddletank steam locos pushing some rock cars up the trestle:

 

Here's a rare close-up of a rock car that I found on my old computer, after my friends Bill Messecar and Don Hubbard had already built 14 HO scale models of these for me:

My friend Jim Coady had previously designed and ordered the 3D-printed rock bins for these cars, and here's the rock car model that he has built himself, as seen on his layout:

Here's an action photo of an 0-6-0T pulling a string of loaded rock cars:
 

Later in my postwar time period, they supplemented the old rock cars with regular hopper cars, which did not unload from the trestle.  Here's an action photo with some hoppers in tow:

 

Here we see one of the steam locos being serviced at the plant, with some rock cars on the left and some kilns on the right:

 Here's a view of all three steam locos at the engine house:

In 1948 they added two GE 70-Tonners to help with the work, as seen in this 1950s Richard Steinheimer photo at the cement plant:

In this view, the engine house is in the center background, along with a rock car and some steam locos.

As the Mojave Northern main line leaves the cement plant, there is a short passing siding where a loco can run around a string of rock cars, and then the line crosses a long, low trestle over the Mojave River, as seen in this fan trip photo:

 

This scene will be included on my layout, but after this my M.N. track will have to sneak through the Lower Narrows scene (where it doesn't belong), hidden behind the cliffs of the Lower Narrows, until it emerges in the staging room, where there will be another siding for loading the rock cars at a quarry scene, as seen here:

At the quarry they used a large electric shovel to load the limestone into the cars, as seen above.

This concludes our second tour of the Mojave Northern Railroad.

In the past two weeks I've been working on my benchwork again.  I attached the legs to Section 8's frame (the first section outside the staging room), cut notches for the legs to pass through its plywood tabletop, and attached the plywood on top of its frame, as seen here:

The three closest legs were temporarily clamped in place, while the three distant legs are permanently attached.  Section 8 is bolted to distant Section 9 and so supports the near end of Section 9.

Then I had to make more legs to support Section 7, and I cut notches in Section 7's plywood for the six legs to pass through.  I attached the legs to Section 7, bolted it to Section 8, and laid the plywood on top, as seen here:

Section 8's plywood has now been screwed down, and I'll repeat that for Section 7 next.

I was going to work on Section 1 next (the one on the floor to the right of Section 7), but then I'd have just a narrow aisle into the far side of the staging room, so I'll do that Section last.  I'll work on Sections 6 and 6A instead.

Meanwhile, I received my new BLI ATSF 2-8-2 #4025, so I tested it on one of my three short staging tracks, as seen here (I love it):

That's all I have until next time.